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LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2024 earnings call

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Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Q4 and FY 2024 earnings call comes on the heels of the company’s Q4 and FY 2024 Update Letter, which was released after the closing bell on January 29, 2025.

Tesla’s Q4 2024 results:

  • Earnings Per Share (GAAP): $0.66 per share
  • Earnings Per Share (Non-GAAP): $0.73 per share
  • Operating Income: $7.1 billion GAAP; $7.1 billion GAAP net income in 2024; $2.3 billion in Q4 including $0.6 billion mark-to-market gain on digital assets.
  • Total Revenues: $25.7 billion
  • Total Automotive Revenues: $19.80 billion

The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2024 earnings call. I will be updating this article in real-time, so please keep refreshing the page to view the latest updates on this story. The first entry starts at the bottom of the page. 

17:41 CT – And that closes Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2024 earnings call! Thanks so much for joining us, and see you next quarter!

17:40 CT – Dan Levy of Barclays asks about Trump’s anti-EV mandate and Elon Musk’s view on it. The CEO noted that at this point, sustainable transport is inevitable. “At this point I think sustainable transport is inevitable. You can’t stop the advent of electric cars. It’s gonna happen. The only thing holding back electric cars is range, and that is a solved problem,” Musk said.

17:37 CT – Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research asked about Tesla’s plans to deploy robotaxis on June. He wonders if he can drive down to Texas in June to test it. Musk said sure, and at the time, Tesla would be using its own fleet for its initial autonomous ride-hailing program. Cars won’t be from individual owners.

Musk also predicts that Tesla owners will be able to add car their cars to the robotaxi fleet by next year.

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Tesla is also working toward FSD Unsupervised which will allow people to check their emails, texts, etc., while the vehicle is in motion, but the company is very cautious. Tesla has seen that people are turning off FSD Unsupervised to check their texts.

17:30 CT – Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley asked if Elon Musk still does not believe in Lidar. Elon Musk says he still does not. “Obviously, humans drive without shooting lasers out of their eyes,” Musk joked. He also explained that he is not anti-Lidar per se. He’s just anti-Lidar when it comes to autonomous cars.

17:25 CT – As for FSD in China, Musk noted that training videos in China cannot be exported out. Tesla figuring out how to train FSD Unsupervised in China. One of the challenges is bus lanes, which are very complex in China.

“Hopefully, we can have Unsupervised FSD in other countries next year,” Musk said.

17:18 CT – Analyst questions start with Bernstein. He asks Elon Musk about what he is doing to push Tesla’s management team to accelerate the company’s programs. Musk noted that Tesla is working on perfecting real-world AI. “I spend a lot of time with the Tesla AI team and the Tesla Optimus team,” he said.

Musk noted that there are many challenges with Optimus and vehicle autonomy, but the pieces are there. He predicts Europe will be a challenge for FSD Unsupervised. FSD Unsupervised is expected to be presented to the EU in the Netherlands in May, with a release probably next year.

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17:15 CT – A question about HW3 vehicles was asked. Tesla noted that the company is not giving up on HW3. Tesla is still working on HW3 but updates will trail HW4 releases.

“We are going to have to upgrade Hardware 3 for people who bought FSD. That’s the honest answer. It’s going to be painful and difficult but that’s what we’re going to have to do,” Musk admitted.

Another question was asked if Tesla has given up on Solar Roof. Tesla noted that it has not. Musk noted that Tesla has found growth by distributing Solar Roof to the roofing industry.

17:14 CT – Another question is asked, this time about the Tesla Semi and how it will affect revenue and scale. Tesla noted that preparations for production are ongoing, and that production is expected to start late this year from Reno. He also thinks the Semi will be incredibly valuable with FSD Unsupervised.

Musk noted that the United States actually has a shortage of truck drivers. And truck drivers are human, so they get tired. “I have a lot of respect for truck drivers, because it’s a tough job,” Musk said.

He noted that more people are leaving trucking than those entering it. With this in mind, autonomy is extremely important. “It’s a several billion-a-year opportunity,” Musk said. That said, the CEO also noted that “all of this is gonna pale in comparison to Optimus.”

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17:10 CT – Musk reiterated that Optimus will be used at Tesla factories first, doing tedious tasks that no one wants to do.

Optimus production Version 2–maybe starting mid-next year–will be designed for 10,000 units a month vs 1,000 units a month. Version 3 is for 100,000 units per month, and with Version 2, Optimus robots may be delivered to other companies.

“Demand will not be a problem, even at a high price,” Musk said. He also noted that at one million units per year, Optimus’ production costs will be around or less than $20,000.

17:04 CT – Another investor question asked if Optimus is designed locked. Musk noted that Optimus is not design-locked at all. However, the CEO noted that “it is rapidly evolving in a good direction.” Musk also noted that other companies are missing real-world AI and manufacturing capabilities.

17:03 CT – The next investor question asked if other carmakers are interested in licensing FSD. Elon Musk confirmed that yes, they are. “What we’re seeing is at this point is significant interest in licensing FSD,” the CEO noted. But before FSD is licensed, Tesla has to reach unsupervised FSD first.

17:01 CT – Investor questions begin. The first is about unsupervised FSD’s release. Musk noted that he believes unsupervised FSD in California and Texas this year, with many more regions at the end of 2025.

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“We’re looking for a safety level that is significantly safer than a human driver,” Musk said. “The only thing holding us back is an excess in caution,” Musk said.

17:00 CT – The CFO noted that Tesla’s growth came from Megapack and Powerwall. Both continue to be production-constrained, which will hopefully be relieved by China, whose Shanghai Megafactory is producing Megapacks. Tariffs, however, are very likely, Tesla’s CFO noted.

16:58 CT – Tesla’s CFO takes the stage. He credits the Tesla team for its performance in Q4. He also discussed some milestones, such as record deliveries in the Greater China market, which is extremely competitive.

Cost reduction continues as well, despite increased depreciation and other costs as the company prepared for the new Model Y. Overall cost per car now down below $35,000.

The new Model Y will be produced in all factories supporting the vehicle starting next month. This is unprecedented in Tesla history.

He notes that Tesla is also on track to release a more affordable model in the first half of 2025, and there will be more models from there.

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16:54 CT – Elon Musk predicts increased demand in energy business. That said, he does admit that Tesla always has to allocate its battery supply. “2025 is really a pivotal year for Tesla. It might be viewed as the most important year in Tesla history,” Musk said.

16:50 CT – Elon, however, admitted that he’s making insane predictions. He cautions that his predictions aren’t necessarily precise. That said, the target is to make 10,000 Optimus robots this year. Elon is confident that Tesla can produce a few thousand this year, with a goal to ramp Optimus production every year.

Optimus’ capabilities are expected to be very impressive. Musk notes that Optimus would be able to play the piano or thread a needle. That’s how precise its hands would be. “Optimus will be able to play the piano and be able to thread a needle,” Musk said.

16:48 CT – Tesla expects to launch Unsupervised FSD as a service in Austin in June. Musk noted that Tesla’s unsupervised FSD system is already working very well in the company’s factories.

“The cars aren’t just driving to the same spot. The cars are programmed to a lane” or a destination parking spot for pick up from customers. Teslas will be in the wild–with no one in them–in Austin in June,” Musk said.

16:45 CT – Musk noted that Tesla’s current constraints are battery packs for now. “Things are going to ballistic next year…and ’27, and ’28,” he said.

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Musk also stated that the training needs for the Optimus robot is 10x what’s needed for a car. A humanoid robot, however, probably has 1000 more uses than a car.

“We live at this unbelievable inflection point in history,” Musk said.

16:40 CT – “I know I’ve been called the boy who cried wolf. I’m telling you, there’s a damn wolf this time. It can drive you,” Musk joked, discussing FSD and his past failed predictions about when unsupervised FSD will be ready.

He also highlighted that while FSD behaved like a neophyte driver before, it won’t be like that forever.

“The only people who are skeptical are those who haven’t tried it (FSD),” he said. He also highlighted the potential of the Tesla Network. “It works fine in the US, and of course, it will work just well anywhere else. The reality of autonomy is upon us,” Musk added.

16:38 CT – Elon takes the stage. He states that Tesla ended the year with a run rate of 2 million cars per year. The Model Y was the world’s best-selling car again in 2024. He shares an optimistic outlook on Tesla’s autonomy program.

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“Autonomy is 10X-ing,” Musk said, adding that he still sees a path toward Tesla becoming the world’s most valuable company by a mile. “There’s a path to that,” he said.

Musk noted that Tesla laid the groundwork for autonomous cars and robots in 2024, and these efforts will continue in 2025. “This will set up what I think will be an epic 2026 and a ridiculously good 2027 and 2028,” Musk said.

16:34 CT – Here we go! Tesla’s IR announces that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a number of executives are present at the call.

16:30 CT – It’s time! It won’t be surprising if Tesla starts a bit late. That being said, there will probably be quite a number of interesting discussions in this call.

Just recently, Tesla posted the first video of its FSD Unsupervised system working in the Fremont Factory. That’s a very big deal.

16:25 CT – Hello, and happy earnings day to everyone! Tesla missed some of Wall Street’s expectations, but TSLA stock seems to be doing pretty well in today’s after-hours. It’s up about 2.3% as of writing.

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As always, this might be a very interesting earnings call.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk

Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX’s Anthropic deal has a catch, and Elon Musk just addressed it

Elon Musk says SpaceX’s Anthropic compute deal cuts both ways after Chamath floats higher prices.

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Elon Musk pushed back on Sunday against the idea that SpaceX’s compute contract with Anthropic is a one way bet, after venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya argued the company could use a termination clause to charge the AI lab far more.

“It works both ways, of course. If compute becomes plentiful and cheap, SpaceX revenue will drop. No crying in the casino for either party,” Musk wrote on X Sunday evening, replying to a clip of Palihapitiya’s comments shared by AI commentator Rohan Paul.

On the All-In podcast released Sunday, Palihapitiya said either side can walk away from the agreement on 90 days’ notice. If data center supply tightens, he argued, SpaceX could exercise that option and bring the contract back at two to three times the current price, and Anthropic would have little choice but to accept. He called it “the kingmaking move,” according to BigGo Finance.

The clause itself is not new. SpaceX disclosed in its IPO filings in May that Anthropic would pay $1.25 billion per month for dedicated capacity at its Colossus clusters through May 2029, nearly $45 billion in total, with both companies able to terminate on 90 days’ notice, as Teslarati reported at the time. SpaceX’s later compute deals with Google and Reflection AI carry similar exit terms.

What has changed is the political backdrop. Palihapitiya’s thesis rests on incoming Democratic governors pulling tax incentives for data centers and slowing new construction. In Texas, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a moratorium on new data center approvals, and Deutsche Bank analysts warned last week that SpaceX’s Texas compute capacity could face delays. SpaceX and Tesla shares both fell after the midterm results.

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A slowdown would favor companies that already own capacity. SpaceX acquired xAI in February and has been renting data centers to outside AI labs before the space is needed for Grok. At the Baron Investment Conference on Friday, Musk said SpaceX was “getting 50 billion a year for 35 billion dollar investments” and that it can bring a data center online in eight or nine months, compared to two and a half years for competitors. He also said SpaceX is tracking toward an annualized revenue rate above $100 billion in December, with a “best guess” of $500 billion by December 2027.

Musk’s reply points to the other side of the clause. Anthropic has signed large compute agreements with Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and if that capacity comes online faster than new construction slows, the AI lab would have its own leverage to renegotiate or leave. Musk has called Anthropic “obviously currently the leader in AI,” and it remains one of SpaceX’s largest compute customers.

SpaceX shares rose more than 2 percent in overnight trading late Sunday after closing Friday at $134.27, according to Stocktwits.

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Investor's Corner

Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX decline after Democratic Midterm sweep

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Credit: Grok

Tesla and SpaceX shares fell on Wednesday after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress. The decline stood out as broader market securities recovered and turned positive, while both of Musk’s publicly traded companies lagged.

CEO Elon Musk already joked about the unsuccessful campaigning for the Republicans, but now the new party will make pretty drastic changes to how it handles Tesla and SpaceX, and those companies will adjust their outlook.

Elon Musk hilariously comments on Midterm election results

Let’s take a deeper look.

Tesla ($TSLA)

Tesla shares traded lower during the regular session after Democrats secured both the House and Senate. The stock was down 2.32 percent at around 1:45 p.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $389.30.

The pressure is tied to more than the raw scale of Musk’s political spending, estimated at $450–474 million this cycle with roughly $224 million directed at Texas. In that state, Tesla now faces a Democratic governor and a Democratic senator after Gina Hinojosa unseated Greg Abbott and James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton.

The Austin Gigafactory, Robotaxi pilot programs in multiple Texas cities, and any related AI compute expansion sit under a new state executive who campaigned against certain corporate subsidies and floated a moratorium on new data-center construction.

Federally, Democratic control of key committees opens the door to deeper examination of Tesla’s autonomous-driving safety record, federal energy-storage and manufacturing incentives, and the national-security implications of any combination with SpaceX.

Investors are also weighing whether the company’s historically close alignment with the prior Republican leadership will invite slower permitting, additional hearings, or tighter rules on Full Self-Driving deployment.

For Tesla, the political shift adds near-term friction around state permitting and federal regulatory approvals for autonomy and energy storage. A potential merger with SpaceX may face slower review even if it proceeds.

Core growth drivers such as vehicle deliveries, energy deployments, and robotaxi rollout remain intact, yet the stock now carries a higher political-risk premium that could weigh on valuation until the company demonstrates workable relationships with the new Texas leadership and congressional majorities.

SpaceX ($SPCX)

SpaceX shares also declined in live trading on November 4 following the Democratic midterm sweep. The stock traded at $134.97, down 4.49 percent. The drop occurred even as broader indexes stabilized, highlighting a company-specific reaction to the election outcome.

Musk’s large contributions, concentrated in Texas races that both companies lost, place SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility and headquarters under a new Democratic governor.

At the federal level, Democratic control of Congress enables greater scrutiny of NASA, the Department of Defense, and other contracts that support a meaningful share of revenue, along with reviews of Starlink national-security uses and any Tesla merger. Analysts have noted that empowered committees can hold hearings and request documents on these relationships.

For SpaceX, the results raise the risk of delayed contract awards, higher compliance costs, and tighter constraints on AI and satellite infrastructure expansion, particularly in Texas where a data-center moratorium has been discussed.

A merger with Tesla could encounter political friction that slows integration of launch, connectivity, and autonomy capabilities.

While Starlink growth and launch cadence continue as primary drivers, the company faces a more contested path for federal funding and state-level operations, requiring management to rebuild ties with the new congressional majorities and Texas leadership to limit the overhang.

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